Gamboa with the Girls

Laura, Jen, Nora, and Amanda at the Miraflores Locks

Some girlfriends from the States are down here visiting for a week, which is great.  First stop on the trip was a visit to the Canal.  From there, we headed out to the Gamboa Rainforest Resort.  The hotel oozed post-colonial charm, and although the capuchins stayed hidden in the trees, we had a lovely time exploring the jungle (via tram car- who wants to hike?). 

The caterpillar as wide as my foot.

View of the Chagres River from the 10-story observation tower.

photo booth

Like I said, the ISP family fun fair was pretty darn fun.  They even had a photo booth, complete with props.  It cost two tickets, but my friend Allison somehow got a hold of 30 free tickets, so we took a lot of pictures.  It was too funny to see the 3 of us crouched over, looking for matching sequined bows.

This is me, Mallory, and Allison:  FFF '13, baby!!!!  The bottom one is totally my favorite.

Zorro Plateado

After eight months of living in Panama, it was time to buy a car.  While my roommate has been very generous about loaning me her car for occasional shopping trips, there have been times where I could have used my own wheels.   I bought this car from encuentra24.com (Panama's craigslist) from a retired Venezuelan diplomat who is moving back to Venezuela (right after Chavez's death???), and I got a great deal, if I do say so myself.  The car has ONLY 15,000 km (=9,000 miles), is a stick shift, does not have auto locks or windows (he's not perfect), and a great a/c.  I have named it Zorro Plateado, the Silver Fox.

ISP Family Fun Fair

inflatable climbing wall, bungee jumping...

Int'l food court with student performance space...

waterpark in the parking lot, with tons of slip-n-slides and crazy bubble games....

Cigars

 On our vacation, of course we stopped to visit a tobacco plantation where the famous cigars are made.  It was quite a sight to see rows and rows of huge tobacco leaves drying out.

We didn't see any cigars being handrolled, but it was still interested to see the low-tech traditional farming techniques.

Lacking imports, be creative

My mom got worried that I was throwing around the name of the island nation that I visited too much on the internet, so I'm going incognito now.  And this picture has nothing to do with anything I'm writing about here...

Since they don't do a lot of business with the USA, this country has created its own brand of just about everything.  I couldn't go a full week without Diet Coke, so ended up drinking TuKola Dietetica.  And the regular TuKola tasted almost like Coke... almost.  

Lucky Strike cigarettes are all over this country, which just adds
to the 1950s feel of the place.  I was tempted to buy some, maybe to save up for a Betty Draper Halloween costume, but logic prevailed.